AIBU for refusing to meet my husband’s ex to discuss the affair? It’s been over a decade now.

[Greeneham]

12 years ago I started sleeping with my friend’s husband it was casual I just thought it would fizzle out. About 9 months into us sleeping together, seeing each other, going on trips (he would tell her it was work trips abroad) he decided to leave her and try to see if we can have a relationship. We have since married and have a 5 year old boy and life’s moved on really.

Last week his ex wife messaged me and asked to meet up and talk. She told me she was still quite hurt and it’s something that has affected her a lot. I responded and told her I’m not sure if meeting is a good idea but I’m sorry for how things happened I accepted my part to play in the affair and I did tell her I’ve moved on I can’t keep apologising and she also doesn’t need to forgive me.

I don’t really see any value in meeting up. What I did was wrong and karma will probably get me for it at the same time I love my husband he makes me very happy we have a lovely son who makes us both very happy. I’d rather just move forward. 8 years isn’t a long marriage but it’s been the best 8 years of my life so far I’d rather just continue the life that we have. We both did a terrible thing I’m not excusing that but also it’s been over a decade now. I don’t want to meet up and talk things out.

Insanity.

I can see you've been thinking a lot but again it comes over as if all of this is just about you.

Even saying you can say that you hurt people is keeping it nice and vague. You hurt her specifically, probably more than anyone else, and she is the one struggling and reaching out to you.

Once again telling me what I will think - hope you are as good at picking lottery numbers as you are at mind reading!

Perhaps she wants to tell you about the other women your husband was sleeping with at the same time as you..

I don’t think you’re trying to justify your actions. I think you believe that boldly stating “Yes I was awful, I cannot justify it” is some sort of magic card that absolves you of the need to behave differently now.

You put your desires first when you had the affair and you’re doing the same now. Write as many paragraphs about your journey of growth and self development as you like. It means nothing if when the person you betrayed makes a simple request of you, your response is “Don’t want to. Don’t have to. It doesn’t serve me.”

As others have said she wants to tell you something, she's either shagged him again or knows others who have.

No one wants to be pals again with someone who does what you did to them. She just wants to dish up a bit of revenge would be my guess.

Seems like her not wanting to speak to you ever again (at that time) let you off the hook really.
She lost far more than her husband if your mutual friends still speak to you and she moved out of the county.
Perhaps she has had some therapy and this is part of closing the chapter. However, I don’t think meeting up would give her any closure as you don’t sound sorry at all.

It looks like her therapist has told her it would be helpful to her (this explains the gap, therapy is slow).
It would be very kind to agree, but no one can force you to see her- facing up to ruining someone's life is a big thing- but it could help you as well.

If you've not had a handful of people who have upset you along the line you must have lived a very sheltered life.

I'm sure they haven't forgotten, much like I haven't forgotten those who have upset me. No benefit to anyone it turning into a pity party

I do not see how meeting up or speaking with her on the phone can be any worse than the ripping apart you are receiving in the comments.

your ex friend sounds so kind - sending a card when your son was born, the kind comments she made when reaching out. Your comments are so self absorbed, and you have made so many assumptions about what she may want.

be really honest with her and yourself. Tell her you are really ashamed about what you did to her and while you want to give her closure the shame of your actions mean you will find it too much to look her in the eye and talk in person, and that you are also six months pregnant. Offer a phonecall, do it and do it soon and then it is done.

her reaching out has made YOU uncomfortable, that is why you do not want to meet up. The anticipation will always be worse than the actual meeting.

You assume she wants a friendship rather than wanting closure whilst feeling nostalgic. She wanted to meet with your ex, that was not to get back with him most likely for closure, with that thinking why have you jumped immediately to thinking she wants the friendship back when she would not have reached out to your husband to get the relationship back?

you took everything from her, give her this.

I think meeting for a cup of tea at a cafe can't be that bad, maybe something lovely will come for it. No one now feels comfortable with phone calls so that's probably a pointless offer, I'd just go along for quick tea and a cake, if your pregnancy means you can stomach it, and just leave again if it isn't sensible. You will both have changed a lot over the years.

Op you have posted on MN for advice about something that includes a past infidelity. This is MN, nothing gets the collective Borg mindset more angry and agitated than infidelity. Hence the snipy comments "once a cheat..", "when he cheats on you" etc.
No one on here knows your situation then or the people you are now. People often makes bad choices, especially if they are under pressure or unhappy. The best you can do is learn, move forward and try to make good decisions.
You don't owe this woman anything, what happened, happened a decade ago. You did not steal her husband. He made his own choice. You were a shit friend but that is all. What would be the point of meeting this woman? It may be different if she was asking to meet your DH, but asking to meet you is weird. What is she going to gain from the meeting (although that's not your concern). More importantly what are you going to gain from the meeting?
Tell her you obviously can't be friends and to stop contacting you.

You sound so cold and detached. You ruined her life!

Wow. You're as cold as OP was back then!
Why should she pay for therapy when sometimes a conversation is all you need to get closure

She does owe her that at least! Jesus Christ

I actually think you're right not to meet her. It sounds as if she misses the friendship and is looking back to the way things were - 40 can be a difficult age for men and women, especially if her life has not gone the way she imagined it would do at 25. I feel for her, she sounds a bit lost but she is making a mistake contacting you. Re-kindling the friendship would only hurt her even more in the long run because it isn't the same friendship it was back then, not by a very long way.

I'm assuming she does want to re-kindle the friendship though based on your posts. If she wants closure or to give you a piece of her mind then maybe that is something for you to consider giving her. If I was her friend, I would be saying don't go back there, move forward though.

So she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.

Any one who's had an affair should have therapy to help them face what they've done and learn to live with the guilt of it.

OP, you are getting a lot of grief here, but this always happens on MN: people get into a panic about what might happen to their lives. It's understandable.

My best friend had an affair with my husband. I kept my best friend and got rid of my husband. I didn't blame her at all to be honest. She is still my best friend, two decades later.

We never talked about it really. I never felt the need, and to be honest the responsibility was his, not hers. I was also a snake in my twenties so I'm not going to throw the first stone.

She might just miss you OP, and want to talk. Good luck. I hope it goes well. And make sure you have the support you need to process whatever comes up, whether that's friends, or husbands, or therapists. And don't cut yourself off from the potential for being loved by her (or any other friends). You are not a bad person. x

Fgs 🥴

Some very strange posts on here and some very odd attitudes.

Holding grudges & having people in your life you "hate" or can't speak to is so unhealthy.

You say you’re sure you’ll get your karma at some point. Hopefully you and your husband get it, both of your behaviour was absolutely despicable. I never understand how people like you and your husband don’t get ostracised from your community. There’s never any consequences for people like you. And now your former friend that you betrayed is asking you to meet for closure and you're dilly dallying around because once again, your feelings are more important. I won’t say any more because I’ll get banned but I’m sure you catch my drift.

What a load of bollocks.

How can you claim to be a different person and then write something like I started sleeping with my friends husband and thought it would fizzle out.

good god. If you’d changed you’d have phrased it differently.

“Shmodipshit · Yesterday 23:59
You slept with your friends husband and actually thought to yourself “this is fine because it will fizzle out and I’ll carry on being her friend.”
That betrayal is huge. But you now know what your husband is capable of, so I hope you loop at all your friends with worry for the rest of your marriage.”

For me, it’s this. I think it’s actually worse that you started sleeping with a friend’s husband just because you could rather than because you had fallen deeply in love with him. Why shit on that particular doorstep if you weren’t even really feeling it? The way you describe it is so hard-hearted, callous and self-absorbed which, as a PP says, suggests you’ve not changed at all.

As for meeting up with this woman: i think it would be a brave and generous thing to do but it could open a can of worms. The moment has probably passed and in reality what could you say that wouldn’t just hurt her again? You were no friend to her then and you clearly don’t have it in you to handle this well or kindly now.

I feel like the wrong people on this thread have had therapy.

I’m going to try very hard not to focus too hard on what I personally think about your actions, I expect it’ll be fairly obvious anyway, because it’s probably of little benefit to have pages and pages of people bashing you. You know it was wrong, albeit I am unsure you fully comprehend the damage and hurt you caused. I can’t help but feel you come across in a somewhat emotionally immature manner BUT tone and implication can be very difficult on here.
With that being said, I really believe I would see her. You never did at the time, so while you say you apologised etc, it wasn’t real for her, she wasn’t ready then. Personally I wouldn’t like to have an ongoing situation where I had done wrong and hadn’t done all that was reasonably possible to set it right, particularly with someone who was once a close friend. I’d at least go to hear her out, somewhere neutral. Maybe it wouldn’t necessarily end with good feelings or with any sense of resolution but at least you’d have tried.